parallels posts

I had never owned a Windows or X86 computer (though I did borrow one from school for a number of months), yet it is very important, as a web developer, to test in IE. IE is of course discontinued for Mac, and has been for 10 years or something like that. IE happens to be the hardest browser to develop for, especially the dreaded IE6, and it (IE in general) still has the market share, so it is very important to test for. I recently got a job and some actual income, so I decided to buy something.

I’ve been considering getting a netbook for a while now to fill my IE needs. It would be relatively cheap, and would be awesome to have a tiny computer to easily carry around. I carry my iBook around a lot, but it’s big and heavy and I have to think if I really want it. The netbook I’d not really have to worry about so much.

I did a lot of research and looking into netbooks. I wanted a touchscreen one with good handwriting recognition, but the current attempts aren’t fully to my satisfaction. There are some new models expected to come out at some point, who knows when. So I could buy a cheap one use it for a reasonable amount of time, when better touchscreen netbooks are out, sell my cheap netbook. I’ve never really been a fan of frequent computer purchases, but I could try it. I could also buy one of the current touchscreen ones and hope it’s good enough for my needs.

At my job, though, I use a mac with Windows installed virtually with Parallels. It provides a fairly good workflow for testing, since I can test many browsers and code all on the same computer. There are a few issues, but for the most part I’ve liked it. So I got to thinking that I could perhaps upgrade my main computer rather than get an extra one. I could get a Macbook and Parallels and Windows. That would be pricy, but I’d have a much more powerful computer, only one to deal with, and possibly better workflow.